After Crowded Memorial Day Celebrations, Mass. General Vaccine Chief Warns Coronavirus Is Still ‘Highly Infectious and Transmissible’

From a crowded pool party at Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri to a street party in Daytona Beach, Florida, Memorial Day festivities brought hundreds close together in several U.S. cities Monday ⁠— largely without masks or other such precautions.

But while behaviors related to the pandemic have changed in recent days, the director of the Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center at Massachusetts General Hospital said the coronavirus itself is still very much the same.

“The virus is what it was previously: highly infectious and transmissible from one person to others over short distance,” Dr. Mark Poznansky told Jim Braude on WGBH News’ Greater Boston Tuesday.

View WGBH Article Here

How a Mass General Vaccine Accelerator Could Play a Crucial Role in the COVID-19 Response

Mark Poznansky MD, PhD, A Steve and Deborah Gorlin MGH Research Scholar, explains his approach to developing a vaccine for COVID-19

“The current COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how quickly an emerging infectious disease (EID) can spread across the globe, threaten individual heath and wreak havoc on the economy and our way of lives.

Almost a decade before the current COVID-19 outbreak, Mass General investigator and Infectious Diseases Physician, Mark Poznansky, MD, PhD, received funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a platform for accelerated vaccine development in the event of a rapidly spreading EID.

That forward-thinking funding resulted in…”

Read Full Article via Mass General Research Institute Blog

Dr. Mark Poznansky was interviewed live on MSNBC

Dr. Mark Poznansky was interviewed live on All in with Chris Hayes MSNBC, April 14 to discuss vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic. Chris acknowledged that Dr. Poznansky is beginning research on a vaccine at the Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center at MGH and the discussion was based around the timeline for a vaccine and the efficacy of a vaccine before it can be used on millions of people worldwide. Dr. Poznansky also said that links with industry are crucial in order to move forward with efficacy studies and manufacturing after the initial vaccine design and noted that we are collaborating with Voltron, Inc and Hoth Therapeutics for this purpose.

COVID-19 Hackers and Hustlers All Hands: Virtual Town Hall

This Thursday, Dr. Mark Poznansky and Dr. Patrick Reeves from VIC will join Boston’s Hackers and Hustlers Meetup for a virtual Town Hall. They’ll cover how to implement both immediate and mid/long-term solutions in the fight against COVID-19.

If you’d like to hear first-hand from experts in immunotherapy and have the chance to ask your own questions, please join on Thursday at 6pm ET.  View MeetUp details below.

Request To Join

The Coronavirus Economic Recovery Must Begin Now

Opinion piece by Mark C. Poznansky, MD, PhD in the Boston Globe on measures required for the economic recovery from the coronavirus.

“Right now, the overwhelming emphasis to combat the COVID-19 pandemic is appropriately placed on testing for the virus, protecting those who are most susceptible, treating the sick, and flattening the pandemic peak. Tremendous leadership, innovation, and dedication to containing the disease across each of these areas continues to evolve.”

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